Automotive Client Case Study (Architecture Transformation)
Onepoint is helping a leading European Automotive Data Provider with its Technology Transformation Roadmap.
Our client is the leading European provider of automotive data, insight and business intelligence services to global manufacturers, insurers, dealers, bodyshops and fleet and finance companies.
Business Problem
Due to intense competitive market pressures, our client elected to undertake a comprehensive audit of its business model, which included a review of its supporting technology strategy. Over the course of multiple private equity buyouts, the new senior management was asked to construct a transformational roadmap to expand the business and streamline its global operations, principally in Europe.
There was widespread acceptance that, due to under investment, there were many areas of the business in which the extant technological capabilities were unable the strategic goals of the business. There are multiple initiatives currently underway to close these identified technology gaps, but these are often confined to specific areas, and many constitute temporary tactical or ‘firefighting’ fixes which do not provide a holistic or a strategically sustainable approach. Thus, the technology strategy needed to support the growth business, targeting new markets with new products, had to deliver gradual incremental benefits to the business and its cash flow.
The Challenge
The main objective of the commissioned Application & Data Architecture Transformation was to deliver a holistic target architecture that would:
- Support faster implementation of new products and services for customers within existing and new geographies in an agile, systematic and predictable manner.
- Enable the client to move towards online transactional based systems.
- Deliver the functional (business view), component (software view), and deployment (infrastructure view) architecture for the technology platform required to enable our client to address current issues and challenges; including data, service and application frameworks.
- Facilitate a greater use of IT assets and services across the business.
- Enable a gradual migration to the technology platform via a high-level roadmap based on a detailed review of the business case.
- Strike the right balance between managing regional and central business requirements.
- Be pragmatic and based upon business drivers, rather than the deploying the best available technology.
- Ensure that the governance and guidance required for key decisions would be carried out by a company-wide design authority function.
The Solution
Onepoint was selected to supply the consultancy services to assist our client in the definition of the technology architecture and implementation roadmap to support their transformation project. Onepoint provided a very experienced and capable team with in-depth knowledge of architecture, open source solution stacks with subject matter experts in business process, data, application, integration, and infrastructure. Onepoint delivered the scope of work over an 8-week period.
Onepoint conducted a rapid, high-level programme which included:
- Agreeing on the application areas upon which to focus, based on business criticality and revenue contribution.
- Through workshop sessions and available documentation, we constructed an understanding of the current landscape, capturing issues and any best practices.
- Defining the conceptual functional model and mapping key application areas applicable to this model.
- Identifying the list of architectural decisions required to address any gaps or extant issues.
- Understanding, at a high level, all the main 3rd party interfaces.
The key inputs to the work covered:
- Business priorities & capabilities,
- Issues & constraints.
- Current projects & initiatives.
- Planned projects & initiatives.
- Data sets & related processes.
- Applications.
- Products.
- Onepoint meeting/interview minutes.
- Previous initiatives & strategies.
The key deliverables produced included:
- Enterprise Architecture Blueprint:
- Defining a “good practice” high level logical and conceptual architecture for the technology platform required for our client to address their current issues and challenges.
- This covered the ‘As-Is’ and ‘To-Be’ platforms. The focus was on the application, data and integration architecture, keeping in mind the data centre and infrastructure rationalisation work already underway.
- Non-Functional Requirements Document.
- Architecture decision papers necessary to help the programme make decisions on their options to fill any technical or solution gaps.
- Implementation roadmap to get to the target, or ‘To-be’ architecture, with indicative costs covering:
- 1st 6 months.
- 6 – 12 months.
- 12 – 24 months.
The Outcome
The work was completed on time and within budget. Key outcomes were:
- A better understanding of the business challenges and how technology can address them.
- Costed transformation roadmap and business case.
- Iterative implementation roadmap, consistent with the appetite for change that is deemed sustainable by the business.
- Setup of a companywide design authority to oversee group-wide decisions in terms of their choice of technology.
- Key decisions and procurement of enterprise service bus and implementation partner.
- Instigate a number of key sub-projects across the business.
Case Studies Category
Industry
Automotive
Solution
Digital Transformation
Technology
Service
Architecture Services
